A review by jennikreads
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

5.0

 HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE tells the stories of a handful of people in an island town. Two very traumatic things happen right at the beginning of the story that set the stage for the story to unfold. It’s a little bit mystery and a whole lot character study. 
 
This is gorgeously written and I could not put it down. The story that unfolds is so layered and nuanced. I loved that Jones would slip in the stories of other characters, told from their perspectives, that we could easily assume we would only hear about from the perspectives of others. It gave such a rich entangled feel to the story and made your heart ache just that much more for the central characters. 
 
I was honestly very hesitant to read this one after hearing everyone who mentioned it shout from the roof top that it was brutal and the list of content warnings (right fully so) were endless. But, a fellow bookstagrammer spoke about it in a way that intrigued me and when I reached out to ask her about her reading experience. She assured me that it is not gratuitous. And that’s absolutely true. 
 
The violence and abuse in this book are absolutely unsettling, and will genuinely trigger some people, but they are not without context and they are never there for the sake of shock. While the content warnings span the entire length of the novel, there are definitely what I would call breaks from that type of content to let your mind breathe. 
 
All that to say, that if you, like me, were unsure whether this would be for you, give it a go, but please review the content warnings first. 
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